+++ title = "About Cookbooks" draft = false
aliases = ["/cookbooks.html"]
[menu] [menu.docs] title = "About Cookbooks" identifier = "chef_infra/cookbook_reference/cookbooks.md About Cookbooks" parent = "chef_infra/cookbook_reference" weight = 10 +++
{{% cookbooks_summary %}}
Chef Infra Client uses Ruby as its reference language for creating cookbooks and defining recipes, with an extended DSL for specific resources. Chef Infra Client provides a reasonable set of resources, enough to support many of the most common infrastructure automation scenarios; however, this DSL can also be extended when additional resources and capabilities are required.
Chef Infra Client will run a recipe only when asked. When Chef Infra Client runs the same recipe more than once, the results will be the same system state each time. When a recipe is run against a system, but nothing has changed on either the system or in the recipe, Chef Infra Client won't change anything.
A cookbook is comprised of recipes and other optional components as files or directories.
| Component | File/Directory Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Recipes | recipes/ | {{% cookbooks_recipe %}} |
| Attributes | attributes/ | {{% cookbooks_attribute %}} |
| Files | files/ | A file distribution is a specific type of resource that tells a cookbook how to distribute files, including by node, by platform, or by file version. |
| Libraries | libraries/ | A library allows the use of arbitrary Ruby code in a cookbook, either as a way to extend the Chef Infra Client language or to implement a new class. |
| Custom Resources | resources/ | A custom resource is an abstract approach for defining a set of actions and (for each action) a set of properties and validation parameters. |
| Templates | templates/ | A template is a file written in markup language that uses Ruby statements to solve complex configuration scenarios. |
| Ohai Plugins | ohai/ | Custom Ohai plugins can be written to load additional information about your nodes to be used in recipes. This requires Chef Infra Server 12.18.14 or later. |
| Metadata | metadata.rb | This file contains information about the cookbook such as the cookbook name, description, and version. |
Chef maintains a large collection of cookbooks. In addition, there are thousands of cookbooks created and maintained by the community:
| Components | Description |
|---|---|
| Cookbooks Maintained by Chef | Chef maintains a collection of cookbooks that are widely used by the community. |
| Cookbooks Maintained by the Community | The community has authored thousands of cookbooks, ranging from niche cookbooks that are used by only a few organizations to cookbooks that are some of the most popular and are used by nearly everyone. |